Muscari botryoides Album - Grape Hyacinth

The 'Album' Muscari botryoides is a beautiful white form of a small bulbous plant also called False Grape Hyacinth or Grape Hyacinth. In spring, it produces upright spikes of tightly packed white bells. Hardy and easy to grow, it multiplies spontaneously and faithfully blooms every year. Ideal in a short grass meadow, a rockery, along a path, with small white narcissi for example. 

Muscari botryoides is a plant from the Asparagaceae family native to central and eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus. It grows in meadows, woods, and fields. The bulb is small, more or less conical, and produces many bulblets. The leaves, linear and erect, emerge from the ground at the end of winter and wither before summer. They are glaucous in colour and form a small upright tuft 15cm (6in) tall. The flowering occurs between March and May depending on the climate: it is earlier in the south, later in the north and in the mountains. The flowering stems, 15 to 20cm (6 to 8in) tall, bear a cluster of 6-8cm (2-3in) at their tip. In the 'Album' form, the flowers are white and almost odourless. The fruit is a capsule that opens with three rounded valves. The seeds self-sow in the garden.  

Plant the 'Album' Muscari botryoides in mass, in groups of about ten bulbs, as a flowering carpet or along a path to achieve a good decorative effect. You can also scatter them randomly in a short grass meadow, a flower meadow, at the base of deciduous bushes. They will greatly appreciate the well-drained soil of the rockery and the full sun it provides. Its white flowering will highlight all the other spring small bulbs. This bright muscari pairs particularly well with white botanical narcissi, Ipheions, and white Greek anemones, in scenes of great delicacy. In a naturally inspired garden, it requires little maintenance.